Man settles for $1.3M over Mario Wii leak

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Nintendo has settled a lawsuit with a 24-year-old Australian games shop employee who was accused of hacking and leaking a copy of Super Mario Brothers Wii onto the Web a week before its release in 2009.

The settlement is for a massive 1.3 million Australian dollars, and will likely bankrupt James Burt, who also has to cover the $100,000 of legal fees that Nintendo ran up. He was accused of violating copyright law, and costing Nintendo thousands in potential sales.

Nintendo said: "The legal proceeding resulted in a settlement in which the individual will pay to Nintendo the sum of 1.5 million (Australian) dollars by way of damages to compensate Nintendo for the loss of sales revenue caused by the individual's actions".

Normally, games in Australia take some time to show up, but in this case the release was global, compounding the damage that Nintendo felt as a result of the leak. It's not clear whether he has kept his job at the games shop where he works, but somehow we doubt it....